Congrats! You’ve probably just finished up self-importing some of your organization’s data into Donor Management, or the Imports team has notified you that your import has been completed, which is a huge step forward!
But what happens if you notice that there are still errors in your data? How can you correct those errors independently – or how can you enlist the help of the Imports team, if and when that becomes necessary?
Not to worry - we’ll walk you through how to address any errors you might have found, and answer some of the most common questions you might have!
What Do Errors Mean?
Errors can occur when you attempt to import data into Donor Management that doesn’t quite align with the corresponding columns or fields available – for example, if you’re trying to import in a set of donation records with a donation date in the future, your data will reflect errors for each of those future donation dates.
Does Data with Errors Get Imported into Donor Management?
The good news is that no, data that is submitted for an import that returns an error message isn’t included in the final, completed import. The system won’t create records for any data with errors – you would need to correct those errors and re-import in the corrected data to add it to Donor Management.
Correcting Errors from a Self-Import
If you’ve opted to self-import your data into Donor Management, you should be able to navigate to the “Imports” tab and see your completed import at the top of a list of all prior imports.
Across from each of the imports, you should see a corresponding column for “errors.”
If you don’t have any errors in your imported file, you should see a small dash in that column.
You can then click on that red “error file” link below the number of errors in that column to download a copy of your “error file.” This .csv file includes all of the data that triggered an “error” message, and includes details on what exactly that error entails – and how to resolve it.
Once the file has been downloaded, you’ll want to open it within Excel (or a similar program).
If you scroll all the way to the right, to the very last column labeled “errors,” that’s where you can find a brief description of what the error was that prevented the data from being imported – such as “invalid address,” or “date is in the future.”
To update and correct those errors, you can simply locate in that error file the column that caused the error, and correct the information directly in that field.
In the example above, you can see that the “error” column indicates that the issue is within the custom fields in the import. To resolve these issues, you’d want to correct the information in that “custom field” column.
Once you’ve done that for all errors, you can delete that “errors” column at the end of your spreadsheet, and save the file to your computer as something you’ll remember and can easily locate.
Finally, you’ll want to return to the "Settings" tab in Donor Management, and then perform another self-import of that corrected error file. This should then add those records with the corrected information into Donor Management, with the rest of the data you previously added.
Common Import Errors
The most common errors that you’ll see are:
Error: First name can’t be blank
A first name is required in order to add a contact record to Donor Management. We’ve discussed in a prior module some nifty ways to work through this requirement if you’re missing donor names – like using the contact’s email address in both the “first name” field and the “email address” field.
Error: Email is invalid
This most commonly happens if the email address listed includes a space, has two emails listed in the same field, is missing an @ symbol, or has an invalid domain (such as @gmail.co, instead of @gmail.com).
Error: User primary email address email has already been taken
This error means that there is already an existing contact in Donor Management that has the email address listed in your import as their own primary email. Primary email addresses are unique in Donor Management and can’t be shared across contacts.
Error: The same email cannot be different type for email, work email, and secondary email
A contact’s primary email address shouldn’t also be listed as a work or secondary email – those fields should include different email addresses or be left blank.
Error: State is not in Country USA
This error sometimes occurs if the data listed under the “state” column doesn’t match a two-letter state code or full U.S. state name. If the address is outside of the US, you’ll want to add a column for “country” and put the country code or country name into that new column.
Error: Country UK is not a valid country
Sometimes, a country code may not be accepted by Donor Management. If you receive this error, please contact our Support Team for further assistance.
Error: Adding this contact will create too many duplicates with the same first name and last name
This error is usually caused by importing donation records that includes donors with multiple donations – but doesn’t include an email address or unique identifier to help those donations correspond with the correct donor. You can resolve this by updating your files to include donor emails, or a unique identifier (like “external user ID”), and then attempting to re-import the file.
Error: Date of birth should be format “yy-mm-dd"
This most commonly occurs if you have entered a partial birthday until the “date of birth” field. If you don’t have a complete birthday for your contacts, you can use different fields (such as “date_of_birth_day,” “date_of_birth_month,” etc.) to capture and upload that information.
Error: Data of birth cannot be a future day
This error is self-explanatory – if you’re including a contact’s full birth date, it needs to be listed as a date in the past!
Error: Donated at must be in the format “yy-mm-dd"
This error most commonly happens if the date of the donation is listed in a different format. In order to solve this error, you’ll want to format the column in your import files so it reflects the correct date format.
Error: Donated at cannot be blank
A donation record must have a date that the donation occurred; this error means that the donation doesn’t have a donation date listed. You’ll need to add a donation date to the record – if you’re unsure of the date, you can use January 1st of this past year for those donations.
Error: Amount is not a number
This error most commonly occurs if the column for “amount” in your import file isn’t formatted correctly, or includes punctuation such as commas, decimal points, and dollar signs. You may need to format your columns and make sure that it’s set to the “number” option in your import file to proceed.
Error: Amount must be greater than 0, when payment method is not “in_kind”
This error happens when the donation amount isn’t listed as a positive number. Donations imported into Donor Management must be listed as a positive value, unless the payment is made “in kind” - in kind donations can be listed with an amount of 0.
Error: Payment method can’t be blank
Payment method is one of the required fields for any donation records you add to Donor Management. You will need to add a payment method to proceed – if you don’t know how the funds were collected, there is an “other” option that you can list in this column instead.
Error: Amount number cannot be beyond 10000000
The maximum amount of a single transaction in Donor Management is $10,000,000. Entering a value greater than ten thousand will result in an error while trying to import – instead, you can split a donation of that size into several smaller donations and import them in that way.
Error: Tribute type can’t be blank, when tribute name has value
If you include information on a donation record that implies there is an associated tribute, you will need to include both the “tribute name” and “tribute type.” The tribute name should be the name of the individual for whom the tribute is designated. The tribute type should be listed as either “honor,” “memorial,” “on_behalf,” or “not_specified.” You may need to add the “tribute type” column to your import file to resolve this error.
Error: “XXXX” is not the option for custom field, when the custom field type is select, checkboxes, or radio button
When it comes to using custom fields, you can set them up to use certain options, such as checkboxes or radio buttons. When using checkboxes with a custom field, you have the option to include multiple values – you'd separate them with a semicolon.
You may need to switch any other punctuation used to separate the values (such as a comma, bar, or space) to that semicolon to proceed. Conversely, if you’re using a “select” type field or a radio button for your custom field, you can only have one value listed in that field – you may need to remove any additional values, or switch the custom field type to use checkboxes instead.
Error: An unknown error occurred. Please carefully check each field in this row to ensure that it contains valid data
This error is most often listed when there is something else about this record, other than the different errors listed above, that is preventing Donor Management from adding it to the system. If you see this error, we recommend checking the import fields that have some of the more common restrictions (such as donation date, amount, email, address, etc.)
“Unable to Parse Spreadsheet” Errors
Sometimes, when self-importing in your records, you might encounter an error that states begins with “we weren’t able to parse your spreadsheet.”
This usually means that the self-import tool is having trouble recognizing the file that you’ve uploaded for import. Most commonly, this happens because the file is not a .csv or .xlsx file – or because the headers for each of your columns in your files aren’t labeled or are unfamiliar to our system.
The easiest way to resolve this kind of error is to open up the original file on your computer, and copy the entire set of data.
Then, open a new spreadsheet in Excel (or a similar program), and paste the entire contents of the original file in the new sheet, and save the file as an .xlsx or .csv file with an easily recognizable name.
You can then use this brand-new file for your self-import, and it should resolve the parsing error!
Why does this work?
Because sometimes copying and pasting the information into a new, “clean” document resets the code formatting behind your data, and makes the file more easily compatible with Donor Management.
Correcting Errors from a File Processed by the Import Team
Even if you’ve submitted your historic data to our Imports team, there’s a chance that you may still have questions – or even find errors - once it’s been added to Donor Management.
The good news is that you can easily ask the Imports Team to review and correct any errors as needed! You’ll want to email our Support team directly and provide them with the following information:
Your organization’s name
When you submitted the data OR when you received notification it had been processed
What specific errors have occurred (at least 3 examples)
When it comes to providing those specific examples of an error, we recommend something like:
“John Smith has duplicate donations. His record shows three donations for $50 for the same “Building Fund” campaign on the same date, June 23, 2023.”
“Susie Jones (external ID #45323, found in the file titled “JUNE 2023 EXPORT”) is missing from the database and does not appear to have been included in the import.”
“Anna Snow’s donation from January 10th, 2023, is attributed to the “Winter Appeal” campaign, when it should instead be attributed to the “2023 Push” campaign.”
“There is a separate tab within the spreadsheet submitted that’s titled “HISTORIC DONATIONS 2015-2017. It does not appear to have been imported in with the other data.”